I usually have no interest in Tea Party stories but the comments section in this OTB post on the dismissal of a case brought by Tea Party-related groups against the IRS has gone so far off the rails that I think it deserves some note. The case wasn’t dismissed because the IRS was exonerated or the claims were found to be spurious. It was dismissed because the groups bringing the suit had already received their non-profit status and the IRS had said that it was sorry and wouldn’t do it again. The case was moot.
Whether it had merit or not was not addressed. It might. It might not. But, since there was no remedy for the groups’ grievances because the grievances had already been remediated, the case was declared moot.
If I understand this, wasn’t this a criminal case? Do they still have grounds for a civil suit for monetary damages or was this actually a civil suit? (IANAL)
Steve
Someone raised an interesting analogy in the comment thread there (presumably before it went off the rails….I didn’t read very far in) to a person seeking disability payments.
That commenter and another were discussing people they knew who’d had to go through an arduous process with a lot of delays and requests for more paperwork. To make this analogy work though, wouldn’t you need to have a situation where one class of citizens was experiencing greater delays for processing these requests?
And in a theoretical situation where that was happening (imagine a racial bias, for instance, admitted to by a senior IRS official), would there be any possible redress?
Someone raised an interesting analogy in the comment thread there (presumably before it went off the rails….I didn’t read very far in) to a person seeking disability payments.
That commenter and another were discussing people they knew who’d had to go through an arduous process with a lot of delays and requests for more paperwork. To make this analogy work though, wouldn’t you need to have a situation where one class of citizens was experiencing greater delays for processing these requests?
And in a theoretical situation where that was happening (imagine a racial bias, for instance, admitted to by a senior IRS official), would there be any possible redress?
@steve, it was a civil lawsuit, primarily to enjoin a targeting scheme, so whether the scheme was lawful or not, the judge found that it had been discontinued and remedial action had been taken. The damage claims against Lerner and other individuals were denied for a different reason, that are probably specific to this type of tax dispute. (One is not required to obtain a 501(c)(3) determination, but if one seeks one and the IRS fails to act within 270 days, a person can ask the court to make a determination or use the IRS’ failure to timely act as a defense to a later IRS claim. This statutory process does not expressly give rise to a right to damages claims and the court would not imply one)
I’m just wondering if Jesse Jackson got the car.
Nice to know the OTB comments section hasn’t changed.